‘Oh yes, you’ve got grown-up twins,’ Beatrice said.
‘Twin boys. My Stuart only moved away from home last month.’
‘That’s right, I remember from the form,’ Beatrice said, and Ruth nodded with a smile. ‘I’m so glad you won our couple’s getaway. Shame Mr Firth isn’t joining you for lessons. He doesn’t like cooking?’
‘He’s made one or two nice curries over the years, but entering the competition was all my doing, really. I’m just glad he’s here. It wasn’t easy dragging him away from his office.’
‘Busy, is he?’
‘He keeps himself busy. He could retire if he put his mind to it, but he won’t.’
‘That’s a shame; if you’ve got an empty nest, you could be enjoying yourselves.’ Ruth seemed to flinch. ‘Did I say something wrong?’
‘That phrase, empty nest, it’s…’ Ruth gave up trying to explain with a sigh and a shrug.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything.’ Beatrice winced. She knew how hurtful people could be with their glib comments. She’d heard her fair share when she lost her baby. People couldn’t find the right words and then they’d stumble into reliable old clichés without thinking and that’s where the hurt lay. ‘Sorry,’ Beatrice said again.
‘Don’t be sorry. It’s accurate. We’re footloose and fancy-free.’ Ruth’s tone was wry. ‘Empty-nesters. It’s supposed to be a good thing, I think, but it also means my little brood’s gone too. What does that make me?’ Ruth took a drink, letting the question go unanswered and Beatrice only tipped her head to show she was still listening. ‘Stuart wasn’t exactly thriving at home with us, and one day he said he wanted his own place, and, well, who are we to stop him?’ Ruth had told Beatrice as much in her competition entry form. There was a pride in her eyes, Beatrice recognised it, but there was something else too, something sad and a little guilty.
Ruth looked out at the bustling bar room as she spoke, matter-of-factly, if a little distant. ‘I’ve spent my life mopping up, remembering to take something out to defrost for tomorrow’s tea, shuffling paperwork and shopping lists, making sure everyone’s got everything they need – school shoes, medicine, haircuts – all those laces tied and doses measured out, all those meals put on the table, and now both of the boys have moved on I’m feeling myself kind of… irrelevant. Invisible, you might say. It’s a relief not to be needed all the time, but at the same time it’s awful.’
‘They’re still your sons, they still need you.’ Beatrice thought of her mother and the times when she missed her most. ‘They’ll want you when they’ve done something they’re proud of. You’ll be the first person they want to phone. And they’ll want you when they’ve fallen in love and they’re giddy with excitement and wanting to tell the world and show their partner off. And they’ll want you when they’re sad and they’ll want you when they’ve heard something funny…’
‘I hope that’s true.’
‘I know it is. You must remember it when you moved away from home yourself for the first time? What it feels like to want them, even when you’re grown.’
‘Hmm, well, that’s what people always expect, isn’t it? That you’ve had an upbringing like them. I was never the apple of anyone’s eye. That’s why I promised myself I’d do things differently, promised myself my boys would always know they’re loved, so I told them every day. They’d groan, but I’d never let them forget it. I remember the midwife saying I’d kiss the pink off their cheeks the way I was carrying on, but I ignored her, miserable old bat. She was one of them, like my parents. A cold fish.’
Beatrice smiled in sympathy but feeling useless. ‘It must be hard to adjust,’ Beatrice said.
‘Mark’s taken Stuart moving away better than me, far better, though I think he must feel it too. Oh dear, look at me. Getting steamy again. I seem always to be crying these days, when I’m not dozing off, or having another bloody hot flush.’ Ruth laughed at this, but Beatrice could see she was tormented.
‘That’s why I picked you both. You sounded like you needed to relax, have a bit of fun together.’ An idea struck her. ‘Was it you that filled in the form?’
‘It was. Just me. I saw your competition in the magazine and the picture of the inn and the bay and the next thing you know I’d filled the form in and clicked send. Didn’t even think to tell Mark, I just did it. Then I forgot all about it, didn’t think in a million years we would win.’
Ruth looked at Beatrice as though trying to decide whether she should say what she was thinking. Beatrice smiled kindly and that was enough to make Ruth speak.
‘It… it hadn’t occurred to me we’d have to actually fill the silences on this holiday, not until we got on the train and had eight hours sat staring at each other.’ Ruth looked at her glass before placing it down on the table as though it was to blame for loosening her tongue.
‘I think I know how that feels.’ Beatrice recalled the last few years of her marriage when Rich seemed so far away even when he was sitting across the dinner table from her. She remembered thinking it was like talking to someone beneath a layer of frozen water, everything indistinct, nothing communicated properly, never really seeing each other. Then the pregnancy had happened and for a few months they had something wonderful to talk about and so many plans to make. When their baby had disappeared through that wall of ice too, their marriage had been too fragile to survive.
Beatrice looked at Ruth who was watching Gene spinning Kitty on the dance floor.
‘I hope your holiday is the break you need,’ Beatrice ventured. ‘A second honeymoon.’
Ruth smiled, determined to make light of her situation. ‘I’m sure it’ll be just what the doctor ordered.’
Beatrice’s heart hurt for her. As Ruth watched the dancing couples she had the look of a woman wondering whether this was it, the way things were going to be for the rest of her life, wondering if she’d just have to potter on, getting by.
Lots of people do, thought Beatrice. They shouldn’t. Not if it made them sad, as she suspected Ruth was.Beatrice couldn’t shake the feeling that she had narrowly missed out on taking a similar path had she continued as Rich’s wife. It could so easily have been her sitting here like Mrs Firth, aching for a little bit of love and sunshine, craving attention and comfort and never getting them.
Yet Beatrice wasn’t convinced Ruth and Mark Firth were quite in the same space she’d been in. She’d fancied she’d seen something companionable and comfortable in the couple as they’d sat together silently. It was the same thing she’d seen in Gene and Kitty back in the summer. Something about the pair just fit, snug like two jigsaw pieces cut out only for each other. Awkwardly shaped and difficult to bring together, yes, but once they’d clicked they were irrefutably in the right place. Maybe it wasn’t so clear in the Firths’ case, but Beatrice could already feel the familiar buzz of interest in them and she could hear Atholl’s voice telling her not to meddle. But it was too late.
‘Ruth, have the pair of you made any plans for the morning?’
Mrs Firth tipped her head, intrigued.
